16 June 2009, 11:44 pm

Have you tried to think of ways of cutting support costs for your field operations?

by Priit Vaikmaa

One solution is to consider switching to SMS messages instead of conventional voice phone calls.

SMS stands for “Short Message Service,” the popular phone-based system that limits messages to lengths of 160 characters. Also known as text messaging and texting. SMS messaging is booming in popularity across the world. In the United Kingdom, around 6 to 8 billion text messages are sent every month. In 2008, 78.9 billion texts messages were sent in the UK, compared to 56.9 billion in 2007 — a 39 percent increase.

Simply put, SMS text messaging is cheaper up front than voice message phone calls. However, there are more indirect ways that texting saves over the more traditional phone message.

For example, you can send SMS messages during meetings, conferences or similar situations in which talking over the phone would not be permitted. It is not uncommon to find in corporate board and meeting rooms, people texting away as the meeting is conducted.

Now, in the fast-paced corporate environment, people are often moving from one meeting to another with little time in-between. Necessary contacts with technical, sales and other people in the field can pile up rapidly in such situations. In order to meet the load, one may have to hire more people or switch to a more effective method of communication. Since today’s meetings, conferences, classrooms, etc., tend to include laptops, PDAs and similar equipment, SMS texting should not interfere with the general flow of activity.

Another advantage offered by SMS messaging comes when the field representative is already required to carry a laptop, Blackberry or other PDA. In this case, there is no need for the extra expense of a cell phone. SMS text messages can be relayed to most modern communication devices.

Experienced texters will often say that texting is easier and quicker than talking even if the record for rapid speech is much greater than the record texting speed. This is particularly the case since the advent of automatic word completion and other tools that make texting fast and easy. While a listener might have trouble discerning rapid speech, the speed of texting has no impact on the reading of the message.

At www.textmagic.com, we offer Email to SMS, SMS Gateway API, TextMagic Messenger, TextMagic Online, SMS Reply Service and TextMe Service to help you streamline your communications with field workers and representatives.

Email to SMS, for example, allows you to send text messages using email without extra software required. If you sign up now, you can receive 20 bonus SMS credits with your first order. Free trials are available for businesses and organisations.

22 May 2009, 7:50 am

Case Study: How August Solutions Is Using Email To SMS Service

by Priit Vaikmaa

This is a first case study in our new Blog. If you would like to be featured please contact us.

Question: What kind of services August Solutions provide?

Richard Ayres, August Solutions: We build bespoke web sites and content management systems. We integrate the Email to SMS service into the back end MySQL/PHP scripts that generate the matching SMS alerts.

Question: How are you using TextMagic text messaging services?

Richard Ayres, August Solutions: We run a couple of sites for property management/letting agents. Potential tenants register their property requirements on our sites picking their preferred locations, #bedrooms required, budget, etc.

We previously sent out nightly e-mails matching up tenants preferences with new properties as they became available to the website/letting agent. As you are probably aware a lot of e-mails get ditched or simply ignored.

Now using the Email to SMS services we run hourly processes during the course of the working day to match new properties with prospective tenants and send the matching SMS alerts each hour (instead of one per night). We find that we have a much higher response rate with the SMS alerts compared to the e-mails. The results are apparent in the increased number of property viewings for each property, the speed with which they are booked, and ultimately a reduced lead time from properties becoming available to them being let with new tenants.

This new approach has proved a hit with the letting agents, their customers – the landlords and obviously the tenants.

Question:  What are your plans in the near future?

Richard Ayres, August Solutions: We have also just recently integrated Email to SMS into the letting agents CMS (Website Content Management System), the facility to compose and send SMS messages to individual tenants/landlords. I know we could use TextMagic Messenger or TextMagic Online but it now fits neatly into the same CMS.

We plan to also introduce early morning automated texts to potential tenants reminding them of any viewing appointments they may have that day. This again should save a lot of time for the staff of the letting agents and hopefully keep the number of ‘no-shows’ to a minimum.

We have also introduced Email to SMS service to another client based in Dubai (a legal firm specialising in wills and financial services for expats). They plan to use TextMagic services for marketing expats located within the Emirates. Again as and when appropriate, we will integrate TextMagic solutions into the bespoke CRM (Customer Relationship Management software) and CMS systems we have developed for them.

We are in discussions with another client to introduce similar alert systems for room rentals rather than whole property lettings.  It is envisaged that in this project the e-mail to sms service will be a source of site revenue, as ‘room match alerts’ will be sold to registered site users in credit bundles.

19 May 2009, 5:25 am

Bulk SMS Gateway API For Software Developers And Programmers

by Priit Vaikmaa

TextMagic released its API in May 2009. This new product provides a way to SMS enable applications and software. We provide two ways to connect to our Bulk SMS Gateway. In addition to Email to SMS you can now connect using HTTP interface.

HTTP API includes the following features:

  1. Send SMS: bulk, single, Unicode
  2. Receive SMS
  3. Get delivery status for all messages sent

For HTTP API we are planning to build wrapper classes for the following programming languages:

  1. Java
  2. PHP
  3. Ruby
  4. Python
  5. C#/.Net

Find our more about our API:
API manual for developers

30 April 2009, 5:35 am

New TextMagic web site just launched

by Priit Vaikmaa

TextMagic founder Dan Houghton created TextMagic in 2001. Back then it was all one person: software was developed by Dan, he made all designs, and also provided customer support. Let us go back and look how TextMagic homepage design has evolved since.

During 2007 – 2009 we changed homepage three times. Finally we have a site design that pleases all our team members and we hope you like our latest update too. Please visit www.textmagic.com and post your feedback to comments section below.

For your amusement I will post some screenshots with original designs. If you too would like to see your old site just check out this cool service called The Wayback Machine.

Click on screenshot to see bigger image.

Very first homepage in 2001.

2001


2006


2006


2008 January. New logo was introduced


2008


March 2009. Please post your comments below


2009

Your feedback is appreciated. Please post in comments section below.

21 April 2009, 9:14 am

New and improved Email to SMS Service settings

by Priit Vaikmaa

We have introduced new Email to SMS Service settings. Now you have better control over Email to SMS Service.

Email to SMS content settings:

  1. You can choose what exactly is sent as SMS: subject line, body or subject+body.
  2. Enable/Disable Unicode characters in the message.
  3. Limit your speding by allowing 1, 2 or 3 text messages per Email.

Email to SMS warning messages (optional):

  1. Opt-in/Opt-out of all Email to SMS warnings
  2. Failed delivery warning
  3. Message too long warning

Email to SMS Security settings (optional):

  1. Set subject line password
  2. List your Email server IP number. Once you list your Email server IP number our Email server will accept Emails only from this IP. This way you can protect your account in a much more advanced way.

Manage your Email to SMS settings.

21 April 2009, 9:05 am

Schedule your SMS messages to be sent later

by Priit Vaikmaa

How often do you forget to send important text messages like congratulations for birthdays, meeting reminders and so on? I bet it has happened to anyone with a mobile phone.

Now TextMagic provides a simple way to schedule your important SMS messages. This way you will never again forget to send your next important text messages.

How to schedule your text messages?
You can do this in a few easy steps

  1. Login to your TextMagic account on our homepage.
  2. Prepare your text message
  3. Then click on “Send Later” button
  4. Now choose date and time and click “Save”

That is all you need to do.

Need to send recurring text messages on a fixed dates?
That is now possible too. You can even set same message to be sent daily, weekly and monthly. You can select fixed date or day.

Please provide feedback about this feature to comments section.

Send_later_screen